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Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Taking Corrupt Men Down: Blatter's Out, Zuma's Still In

The other day I met with a group of friends
who were heated about something and I assumed it was about Sepp Blatter. But
they were talking about South African President Jacob Zuma’s latest corruption
scandal. I mentioned Blatter and somebody dismissed him, saying that Zuma
affects us more closely. Well, maybe.

The ruling party, the ANC, once an
organization of massive integrity, with men of towering courage leading the way
towards freedom against seemingly unbreachable odds and massive crimes against humanity, is now corrupt through and
through. But it has complete power, perhaps because too many South Africans still
blindly believe in the PR. No matter how often politicians get
caught out, there’s always more, and always the most pathetic excuses are
trotted out, the message being “I don’t care. What are you going to do about
it? Nobody can touch me, no matter what I do. And I know that enough people don’t
want to know the truth. So bite me.”

The latest Zuma fiasco is that he spent
R215 million of taxpayers’ money on ‘upgrades’ to one of his homes, Nkandla. To
put that in context, R32 million was spent on President Nelson Mandela’s home. In
December 2009 it was revealed that the Nkandla cost was R65 million. Zuma
squirmed his way around that and carried on spending. The icing on the cake are
extras that include a huge swimming pool, and Zuma’s excuse for that one is
that it’s really a reservoir in case fire breaks out. The ANC spokesman did
what he always does. He said we believe in our President. And Zuma says he’s
done nothing wrong. As he did when he got off the charge of rape and 700 counts
of fraud just before he was elected (he was Vice-President at the time). The
investigation went nowhere. I remember him saying once he’d been elected
President that the investigation shouldn’t be continued because it would get in
the way of his work [as President].

Part of that terribly important work being, presumably, to do
things like upgrade Nkandla at the tax-payers’ expense. The Guardian has the
story and a telling photograph of a hut just outside Nkandla with some very
poor people living in it. South African Public Prosecutor Thuli Madonsela investigated and found Zuma guilty of wrongdoing. The response? Police Minister Nathi Nhleko revised Madonsela's report and found that Zuma hadn't done anything wrong. How surprising. Was that constitutional? Nope.

It seemed, until yesterday, that there
wasn’t much difference really between Zuma and Blatter. A few days prior to the
FIFA elections, which Blatter was predicted to win hands down, a whole bunch of
FIFA officials were arrested in a Swiss Authority dawn raid, backed by a
separate FBI investigation, on the Baur au Lac five-star hotel with views of
the Alps and Lake Zurich. In all 14 FIFA officials were indicted on charges of bribery
(over $150 million), racketeering and money laundering. Then it was revealed
that the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, awarded to Qatar and Russia respectively,
might have involved bribery. And then that SAFA, the South African Football
Association, authorized a $10 million bribe to a FIFA official to secure the 2010
World Cup. Blatter’s right-hand man, FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke,
was alleged to have authorized a $10 million transfer.

The British press exploded and the UEFA
President Michael Platini publicly called for Blatter to resign. Blatter refused and defiantly said
he’d done nothing wrong, that he couldn’t be possibly control everybody in FIFA
and that to resign would be to admit that he was accountable. He completely
washed his hands of all involvement. It was sickening. He was so smug about it.

European soccer organizations and
politicians were outraged and called for transparency and justice. Vladimir
Putin said it was a US conspiracy. African and Asian FIFA members stood behind
Blatter, not at all caring about the corruption. Blatter has done a lot for
smaller member states and the assumption, I guess, was that a new person, one
with integrity, might not care as much.

Interesting logic there. There was no word
from Qatar and nothing from South Africa, where the speculation of this corruption
has come up before and been squashed.

The elections for FIFA President went
ahead. Prince Ali of Jordan, Blatter’s only competitor, should have won. He didn’t, and though he won enough votes for a second round
of voting he conceded, primarily out of concern that anybody who voted for him
would suffer retribution if he didn’t win. His
sentiment was echoed by many. The British press and everybody who had any
integrity kept reminding us that the FBI and Swiss investigations had just
begun, and speculation about how long Blatter would last was rife. But the man
was defiant, and even climbed on the US conspiracy bandwagon. Blatter and
Putin, what a pair. Certainly there could have been no money changing hands
there.

Well, Blatter had got away with either
participating in or turning a blind eye to corruption for so long that he got a
little ahead of himself. I saw his daughter being interviewed; she was wholly
convinced that her father is a good man through and through. I felt sorry for
her.

Her dear father must be eating his words
about if how he resigned it would mean he’d done something wrong. Of course he
trotted out that he really and truly and deeply cared about FIFA and all the
soccer players around the world, but his speech was short and his defiance was
gone. Although, I must say, he looked angry.

In a world where people with too much power
abuse it and are somehow out of the reach of their victims too many times, it’s
been the most rewarding news I’ve heard in a long time.

What tipped the scales for Blatter? Again,
everybody’s speculating. But now the FBI have acknowledged that he’s under
active investigation. A little coincidental, methinks. Interpol have issued Red
Notices for two former FIFA officials and four FIFA executives for charges
including racketeering conspiracy and corruption. (A Red Notice is a
notification to Interpol member countries that a member judicial authority has
issued an arrest warrant and is looking for the person/s concerned.)

So here we have two huge corruption
scandals in different parts of the world. One has been and is being addressed
fully. The other is business as usual.

Watching how many people spoke out on the
side of truth gives me hope that integrity has a kind of power that all the
corruption in the world—which is just a form of bullying—can’t ultimately
overwhelm. And to see good actually triumph over evil in real time is something
else. But it hasn’t happened in South Africa yet, that’s for sure.

It would be ironic and utterly delicious if
the FBI’s investigation led them to Zuma somehow. It’s hard to believe that he
was ignorant of the [I guess I should say ‘alleged’] $10 million bribe
authorized by SAFA.